


A Safe Call

by sunflowersandsuffering



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Reveal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-05 13:19:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15171575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflowersandsuffering/pseuds/sunflowersandsuffering
Summary: Ladybug and Chat Noir exchange real life phone numbers





	1. Chapter 1

Marinette

_ Adrien _

**Alya**

 

[7:04 PM]  _ Hey, Marinette, it’s Adrien! I was hoping to ask you some questions about the history assignment from today. What did Mme. Bustier want in that essay again? _

 

[7:05 PM] Adrien! Hi! I can absolutely help you!! When do you want to meet? Maybe the Tom & Sabine Boulangerie Patisserie tomorrow after school?

 

[8:39 PM] _ Ok, that sounds awesome! I’ll see you then! _   
  


Adrien set his phone down on his nightstand and sighed contentedly. It was such a nice change to have close friends that he could rely on. Back before he had attended school, the only person his age that he knew was Chloe. Though she was a great friend to him, he was very happy to have more great people he could rely on. 

Adrien been out dealing with an akuma attack during History when the essay had been assigned, so he had no idea what the assignment was. He figured Marinette was his best bet to help him with this because she was always so attentive in that class. Whenever he looked up at her, her gaze was unwaveringly fixed on the chalkboard. In fact, now that he thought about it, she never really  _ looked _ at him, even when he said hi at the beginning of class… Maybe she didn’t like him after all? But she did say yes to helping him, so he guessed she had to like him, at least a little bit. 

Adrien had been really afraid that Marinette hated him on the first day of school, because of the Gum Incident. Marinette had thought that Adrien had put a piece of gum on her seat, though really, Chloe had done it. Marinette had been really mad for a few days, but he explained and apologized, and after a few weeks, she seemed to start talking to him again. It was slow going, but he had gotten her to open up more and more. He didn’t quite understand why she would still be angry at him, but he did admire her dedication to her causes. Recently though, it seemed that Marinette had gotten over her anger at Adrien. She had even called him cool the other day (he thought she had anyways, the whole conversation had been a little confusing, comparing Chat Noir to himself was a weird situation). 

Adrien got ready for bed with an excited smile on his face.

 

* * *

 

[9:16 PM] RED!! ALERT!! ALYA!! 

 

[9:16 PM] ADRIEN asked ME for help with homework!!

 

[9:17 PM] We’re going to hang out after school tomorrow

 

[9:17 PM] How am I supposed to help him with homework!? I can’t even string together a full sentence around him!

 

[9:18 PM] Weren’t you sick a few weeks ago? Sneeze on me or something! I can’t do this!

 

[9:19 PM] And to make matters worse, the homework he asked for help on was history, I wasn’t even THERE in history today

 

[9:19 PM] I can’t go, I can’t do this. Adrien is going to think I’m a dolt and he’ll never talk to me again and we’ll never be able to date or fall in love or anything.

 

[9:21 PM]  **Okay, first of all, congrats girl! This sounds like a date to me… you did it! Your irresistible charms finally paid off.**

 

[9:21 PM]  **Second of all, stop spiraling. Nothing ever goes as badly as you think it will.**

 

[9:23 PM]  **Third of all, I’ll help you with the history assignment first. It’s a research essay, so you can do your research together! Maybe you’ll end up researching more than just the war of 1812 ;) ;) ;)**

 

[9:24 PM] Omg Alya if you say anything to Adrien I’ll... steal your phone again! How would it feel if I texted Nino about your feelings?

 

[9:25 PM]  **Hahahaha, no need at all to go that far…**

 

[9:25 PM]  **But you’ve seriously got this in the bag, girl!**

 

[9:27 PM] Ugh I hope so. We have to make a /plan/ during lunch.

 

[9:27 PM]  **Now THAT’S the Marinette I know and love**

 

* * *

 

[7:54 PM] You know, you were right Alya. It ended up going fine, his bodyguard just picked him up. 

 

Marinette sent Alya a quick text, then set her phone up to charge. She figured she would have to spill all the details of the evening soon, but she wanted to linger in her moment with Adrien for now. Marinette looked down at her work table, at her latest unfinished design. She had been pondering a way to pull this outfit together, it just wasn’t working as it was. She decided that sitting down to work on it for a few minutes before patrol couldn’t hurt.

After some time, Marinette looked at the clock. She was supposed to meet Chat Noir at 8:30, and it was almost 9. “Tikki, you ready to go? We’re going to be late!” 

Tikki rubbed her eyes and quietly hummed an affirmation as she emerged from her cocoon of blankets. She protested how chilly it was, but after a quick snack she was ready to go. Marinette quickly transformed into Ladybug, then sprung out of her room in search of Chat. 

She found him with some ease - he was sitting at their predetermined meeting spot, legs swinging off the side of the building. It was one of the taller buildings in the city, so it offered a beautiful (and useful) view of the city on all sides. When he saw her approach, Chat stood up, and offered his hand in an overly exaggerated bow, “Milady! I was worried you had found another black cat to patrol the city with!”

“Of course not!” Ladybug smiled and pushed Chat lightly. Her face quickly fell, though, as she realized the implications of what he had said, “I’m sorry Chat, I just lost track of time. It won’t happen again!”

“Oh no, I would never expect anything less from my lady! But you know, I am always a little worried about you when you’re late … Maybe we should exchange some way to contact each other in the real world!” Ladybug opened her mouth to interrupt, but Chat continued in a flurry of excitement, “We could contact each other more quickly if there was an akuma battle! And make sure the other is okay in situations like this! It’s really the safest option my lady.”

Ladybug opened her mouth, then closed it again. She was at a loss. “I… I guess that might be a good idea?” She shook her head. She knew that there were a million reasons not to do this, but she was tired and frazzled from being late, and didn’t want to argue with Chat when he did have a valid point. This would make things between them a lot easier. “If we do exchange phone numbers, we have to be careful! Your voicemail box probably says who you are, right?”

“So we just won’t let each other’s calls go to voicemail!”

Ladybug sighed. She was just prolonging the inevitable, “Okay, I guess we can do this. Do you have any paper or anything?”

Chat did not, in fact, have any paper, so one late night coffee shop run later, they stood on the top of the same building, writing their numbers on cheap napkins. Chat showed Ladybug his napkin when they were done, “Can you read this? I know it tore a little, I can write it again if you want.”  
“No, it’s okay, I can read it just fine,” Ladybug exchanged her napkin with his, and they made sure the numbers were correct.

“Ha ha! I have milady’s digits!” Chat danced around the rooftop, evidently quite as tired and loopy as Ladybug. The past few akuma attacks had been at very inconvenient times of night, and it seemed that they were both running on steam. They decided to make it a quick patrol that night, and Ladybug was home before she knew it. She put Chat’s number on her desk, not wanting to make the events of the evening real by putting it in her phone. She opted instead to drop into bed. She would deal with it tomorrow.

 

* * *

 

Adrien dropped into his room after patrol and immediately grabbed his phone. His lovesick smile made Plagg grumble something about fools in love, but he soon went to raid the stock of cheese Adrien kept in his fridge. Adrien’s hands shook as he inputted Ladybug’s phone number into his phone. He was one step closer to knowing who she really was! And this meant that she was getting more okay with the idea too! His mind buzzed with the happy possibility of Ladybug wanting to know who he was. He was grinning uncontrollably as he pressed the done button on her contact.

 

Contact “Milady ;) ;)” and contact “Marinette” have the same phone number. 

Confirm this is okay?

 

Adrien dropped his phone.

 

* * *

 

Predictably, Marinette woke up with tons of unread messages. Most were from Alya, asking about her afternoon with Adrien. Marinette sent a quick message saying that it was amazing and that she would tell all at school today. She looked through the other messages. One was from Nadja asking if she could babysit Manon tonight, another was from a group project partner in chemistry, and another yet was from… Adrien? Marinette opened the message, expecting something about the research paper. Neither of them had finished last night, so she figured he had a question.

 

[11:04 PM]  _ You’re Ladybug? _

 

Marinette nearly jumped into the air. Adrien had figured out who she was. Her secret identity was ruined; she would have to give up the Ladybug miraculous and never be able to save Paris again. And she didn’t even have anyone to talk to about it! Alya couldn’t know, she would probably post everything to the Ladyblog, her parents couldn’t know, they would stop her from ever going out ever again, Tikki would make her give the Ladybug miraculous back to Master Fu. She sunk back into bed, hopeless. 

_ But wait _ , she thought,  _ Chat and I traded phone numbers! _ And what more important reason could there be for contacting her partner? She hurriedly found the napkin with Chat’s number and dialed it. She immediately brought it to her ear. Before she could even come up with a contingency plan for what to do if she reached his voicemail, he picked up.

“Marinette, it’s you? I can’t believe this, we have to talk at school toda--”

“Adrien? Is that you? OhmygodIdialedthewrongnumberseeyouatschooltodaygoodbye!”

Marinette threw her phone down at her bed. Once she had regained enough composure to breathe again, she grabbed her phone. She dialed Chat’s number again, more carefully this time. She was suddenly thankful that she and Chat had decided to exchange numbers. Having his support would make this so much easier.  

“Marinette? Hello? Are you okay? You hung up really quickly there, I was worried for a second. I know this is crazy news, but I was looking through photos last night, and I don’t know how I didn’t see it sooner.”

Marinette managed to squeak out, “Chat?” before hanging up again. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People realize that their actions have consequences, roles shift, and Alya knows what's up.

[6:40 AM] _ Are you okay? If your phone connection is bad we can meet up?? The usual spot? _

 

Marinette took quite a few seconds to process this. She didn’t HAVE a usual spot with Adrien. Their spots in the classroom? Wasn’t that a little public? But then her brain caught up with her, and she realized that he must be talking about their patrol spot. By now, Tikki was making her way over to investigate the series of extremely distressed noises Marinette was making. 

“Chat Noir is Adrien” Marinette wasn’t sure she had spoken loudly enough for Tikki to hear her, but she apparently had, as Tikki flitted around her head nervously and tried to read over her shoulder. 

“You should go meet up with him, clear all of this up.” Tikki hugged Marinette’s shoulder, muffling her words. 

“You really think I should talk to him? Isn’t there a way to use Miraculous Cure on his brain or something?” Tikki shook her head, and Marinette’s face fell, “Wait… you’re not going to take away my miraculous?”

“Of course not! This isn’t ideal, but black cat and ladybug miraculous holders almost always find out who the other is. It’s inevitable, you’re made as complements to each other. He is the yin to your yang!”

Marinette couldn’t argue with that logic.

 

[6:43 AM] I’ll be there in 5

* * *

This time, Marinette was first to the rooftop. She squinted into the bright morning sun, looking for the familiar figure of Chat Noir. She slowly came to the realization that the Agreste mansion was on the other side of town from this building. This must be quite the commute for Chat/Adrien. The two were still totally separate people in her mind, she still didn’t believe that they were one in the same. She thought about all the things Adrien had done with her for class. She realized that he did have a very similar schedule to her, because he had to account for the constant akuma attacks and patrols. But she couldn’t rationalize their personalities together. She pondered the two (one) boys until the sound of Chat’s feet hitting the rooftop broke her reverie.

When Chat landed on the balcony, his face was lined with concern - all wide eyes and raised eyebrows and subconsciously puckered lips. His eyes flitted across Ladybug’s face, and  she couldn’t help but smile. It was so Chat, and so Adrien that for a second, everything might have just been normal and fine and not all in shift. Apparently, Ladybug also had a look on her face, because Chat smiled as well. Everything was so silly and serious, and wrong and right that she couldn’t help but giggle. Once Chat started to giggle as well, that was the end. They both devolved into a fit of laughter that lasted minutes. One that Ladybug suspected may have woken up all of Paris. They only stopped when they heard a woman in an adjacent building yell at them to be quiet.

“How…” Ladybug breathed deeply to try to stop laughing. There were tears in her and Chat’s eyes. They had moved during the course of their laugh-attack, and they were both sitting on the rooftop recovering, “How is this even real life? You’re ADRIEN. He’s absolutely _nothing_ like Chat Noir.”  
“You…” Adrien hesitated, half laughing, half nervous, “you don’t even know. I wish I could be as open as Chat when I’m Adrien, but the pressure is just always on, you know?” 

“I understand that. All I want is for Ladybug to be able to help Paris, but it can be so difficult to balance that with my real life obligations.” Ladybug was suddenly glad to be talking to Chat, he was really the only person who could understand what she was going through.

Ladybug and Chat looked at each other for a second, then Chat opened his arms for a hug. Though they were both still sitting on the ground, they maneuvered themselves to just sit and hug, and wordlessly watch the sun move up in the sky. That was how they found themselves when the clock struck 7:30, and it was time to leave for class. They left with promises to talk more after school, and figure out this weird situation they were in.

* * *

As Marinette walked into the classroom that morning, somehow on time despite her and Chat’s meetup, she sat immediately next to Alya.

“So? Spill! How was your night?” 

“Oh, it was amazing…” Marinette sighed, though her feelings for that particular boy were now more complicated than just a sigh could convey, “Oh, Adrien…”

“I told you it would go fine! He’s just a regular, if exceedingly pretty, boy!” This earned Alya a playful punch in the side from Marinette. 

Normally, they would talk about random stuff until class started, but Marinette stared off into space and thought instead. How did her feelings for Adrien conflict with her feelings about Chat Noir? She decidedly did  _ not _ like Chat like that, but if he was Adrien… And hadn’t she thought about how fun it would be if Adrien were playful like Chat, wore a suit like Chat’s (oh my god, she had seen ADRIEN in Chat’s suit?!? In his OWN SUIT?!?). Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing? It was definitely a different thing. It would require her to change the way she thought about the two boys. But would she think of Chat like Adrien, and become a stuttering mess around her partner? Or tease Adrien, and get over her crush? She guessed that if she could be cool around Chat, she could be cool around Adrien. Marinette decided to just treat Adrien like she treated Chat. It wouldn’t be okay to not be able to talk properly to her partner, after all. Even if he was the cutest, nicest boy ever, who was also wearing a tight leather suit.

With that, Adrien walked into the classroom, and Marinette instinctively avoided eye contact, as had become her norm. Then, she realized how silly that was, not even being able to look at her trusted partner. She resolved to talk to him like normal. It seemed, though, that Adrien was one step ahead of her.

“Hey, you finished your essay!’ Adrien noticed the paper on Marinette’s desk, and pulled his own out of his bag, “So did I!” His voice was slightly strained, as if was upset about something.

“Congrats! That was an annoying assignment for sure. Pound it?” Marinette held out her hand for a fist bump. She realized that this was Adrien she was talking to, not Chat, and that this wasn’t something they did. To her great relief, Adrien reciprocated, and they fist bumped like the two heroes. Alya, Nino, and a couple of the other kids in the class looked on in surprise. Marinette’s debilitating crush on Adrien was common knowledge, and seeing her speak so freely with him was a big surprise. 

Nino spoke up first, “Wow dude! Didn’t realize you two were such fans of Ladybug and Chat Noir!”

“Uhhhh, yeah! I love Ladybug!” Adrien looked at Marinette, who was blushing immensely from their friends’ interest in them. He startled, and Marinette guessed that he realized that had said that  _ in front of _ Ladybug, “And Chat Noir too! They’re the coolest! Greatest duo in all of Paris.”

Nino and Adrien went to talk more at their seats, so Alya took Marinette aside, “Wow girl! When did you become so cool around Adrien? And when did he get so weird around you? It’s like you guys switched places or something.”

“Uhhhh, I wouldn’t say we’re any different! When we hung out we… we realized that we were both big fans of Ladybug and Chat Noir! The fist bump was an… inside joke! We aren’t any different from before, I promise.” 

“If you say so, girl. But I would put money on Adrien having a crush on you.” Alya raised her eyebrows and nudged Marinette, who was already shaking her head.

“No, no, no, no… Adrien can’t like me. Not like that. He just… couldn’t feel that way about me.” But, Marinette added in her head, could Chat Noir? He did plan that whole candle lit dinner for Ladybug. But that was before he knew that Ladybug and Marinette were the same person. He definitely didn’t feel that way anymore, not after this reveal. Marinette spent the rest of class convincing herself everything would just go back to normal again.

* * *

Adrien, on the other hand, spent class thinking about how royally he had embarrassed himself in front of his Lady. He didn’t know how he would be able to focus in class, with her behind him like this. He wanted nothing more than to talk to her, and he just couldn’t work like this. Nino poked him a couple of times, when he would stare aimlessly at the board and stop taking notes.

Nino mouthed something at Adrien, maybe, “Are you okay?” Adrien nodded, and Nino rolled his eyes as if to say, “If you say so.” 

When the end of class finally came about, and it was time for lunch, Adrien immediately went up to Marinette. He had decided that they needed to talk, and he figured the sooner the better. He realized immediately upon saying hi, though, that he hadn’t thought of how he would talk to her. 

“Uhhh, hi?” Adrien mentally punched himself for not planning this conversation in his head. He was talking to HIS LADY after all, he couldn’t just talk to her, what if he said something stupid? Nino had followed him, and Alya had followed Marinette, so they had quite a crowd. Adrien figured that just asking to get lunch together wouldn’t be very private. So, he did the first thing he thought would solve that problem, “So, Marinette. Do you… uhhh… do you maybe want to get lunch? Just the two of us?” 

Marinette’s eyes widened, then she kind of shook her head and they restored to normal. Alya and Nino both looked at Adrien, speechless. They seemed to be waiting for Marinette’s reply. After her moment of recovery, she did reply, “I think… I’d love to! That sounds like fun.”

Alya and Nino looked at each other, then burst into laughter. Nino punched Adrien playfully, speaking quietly enough that he didn’t think the girls could hear him, “Took you long enough dude!”


End file.
